The Exorcist (1973, Ellen Burstyn, Max Von Sydow, Linda Blair)

Something beyond comprehension is happening to a little girl on this street, in this house. A man has been called for as a last resort to save her. That man is The Exorcist.

Quick plot: A 12-year-old girl is possessed by a demon, and an old priest comes to expel it from her.

Scariest scene: Gee, that’s like asking Dracula to pick his favorite blood type. There’s the headspin, the pea-soup vomiting, and that spider-walk scene that was cut from the original release, just to name a few. And don’t get me started on those split-second flashbacks to the demon Pazuzu’s true face. Those gave my teenage soul nightmares for weeks. But you can’t go wrong picking one of the most horrific scenes ever put on celluloid, where the possessed Regan stabs herself in the crotch with a crucifix as her horrified mother looks on.

Final say: Even in our jaded age where irony rules, there’s no messing with The Exorcist. It’s genuinely scary, and never lets up. The key is that, despite the outlandishness of what’s taking place, every moment of it seems absolutely real. Director William Friedkin brought the verite style he’d honed on The French Connection to this supernatural thriller that took its time getting to its money shots, and made us care about the characters. A special Oscar should have gone to Mercedes McCambridge, who provided the raspy voice of the demon. Something tells me that “Your mother (bleeps) (bleeps) in hell!” just wouldn’t have sounded the same coming from Linda Blair.

Sequel guide: Exorcist II: The Heretic is worth seeing on a kitsch level, featuring a woefully miscast Richard Burton at his most stentorial. Did I mention there are locusts? Lots, and lots of locusts? Exorcist III is quite underrated, and should be seen as the official sequel, since it’s based on a book by William Peter Blatty, who also wrote the original. Blatty also directed. Of the two versions of the prequel that were released, neither are much beyond footnotes to the series, but Paul Schrader’s version is more satisfying than Renny Harlin’s hack job.

Categories: Horror by sharrison76
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Tags: Exorcist, Halloween, Horror, Scariest Movie Countdown

by Zhillbear

The Fang tribe is surviving on a few spoonfuls of rice each day, and when Crystal accidentally spills some, Matty and Ace say nothing, but Crystal’s still upset because they looked unhappy. Crystal then refuses to eat, since she doesn’t want to take food away from the others, but she later says that Ace could’ve saved her some rice if he cared about her. Ace tells the camera that he sees Crystal as “the next lamb to the slaughter,” but he doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to lamb-slaughter predictions: When he said that about the Kelly lamb, the Jacquie lamb was slaughtered.

Over on Kota, Dan doesn’t like how tight Charlie, Marcus and Corinne are, and he talks with Marcus and Corinne about being an outsider. Dan feels better after their little chat, not knowing that Corinne came away from the conversation thinking “Dan is socially inept in a lot of ways — I don’t know if he’s a former fatty, or why he wasn’t liked as a child” and that Marcus sees Dan as “the ultimate paranoid human being.” (I wonder if Dan watched Marcus’ comments on TV and said, “Well, I am NOW.”)

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Categories: Reality TV by Zhillbear
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Tags: Ace, CBS, Corinne, Dan, gabon, Recap, Sugar, Survivor

The Shining (1980, Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers)

Heeeeere’s Johnny!!!

Quick Plot: A family spends a winter snowbound at an isolated hotel in the Colorado Rockies, where the father is driven insane by the many ghosts who roam the halls. He feels compelled to murder his mousy wife and vaguely psychic son.

Scariest scene: Stanley Kubrick gives us plenty of creepy scenes, and Jack Nicholson’s psychopathic pursuit of Shelley Duvall is still — for better or worse — the standard bearer for all psychos-on-the-march portrayals. But for sheer shock value, nothing beats Jack sharing a smooch with a beautiful, naked woman in Room 237, only to pull back and find she has become a rotting corpse.

Final say: Redrum. Blood waves. Creepy twins. Snow mazes. Heeerre’s Johnny!!! What more do you need to make a horror classic? That aside, Stephen King was never happy with Kubrick’s version of his novel, saying Nicholson’s wacko-from-the-start performance left out the whole journey of a man going insane. He also took issue with Shelley Duvall’s doormat portrayal of Wendy, which is totally the opposite of how she is in the book. Hard to argue those points, but giving a master like Kubrick the tableau of snowy landscapes and letting him make the hotel itself a character … Think of how he used space, from Jack throwing the tennis ball against the wall, to little Danny’s Big-Wheel trek through the halls of The Overlook. Besides, King got to script his own screenplay for a remake, and the result was the absolute crapfest that was the 1997 miniseries.

Fun fact: Danny Lloyd, the actor who played Danny, had a short acting career, going on to accrue only one other acting credit, a TV biography of G. Gordon Liddy.

Why not? Check out these artworks inspired by the film.

Categories: Horror by sharrison76
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Tags: Halloween, Horror, Scary Movie Countdown

The Silence of the Lambs (1991, Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn)

Hello Clarice.

Quick Plot: Novice FBI trainee Clarice Starling must elicit clues to a serial killer’s identity from Dr. Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter, a brilliant psychopathic murderer incarcerated in the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He offers obscure clues to the identity of “Buffalo Bill” in exchange for access to Agent Starling’s vulnerable mind and soul.

Scariest Scenes: Dr. Lecter’s manipulation and psychological seduction of Agent Starling is a terrifying battle of wits. He casts a spell and plays dangerous games with her head, something more nightmarish than the physical damage he is capable of inflicting.

Clarice follows her own hunch to the house of Buffalo Bill’s first victim. In a casual interview with the next door neighbor, she realizes she has found the killer. As she pulls her gun, he runs off. The power goes out while Clarice cautiously searches the house. In the dark, Buffalo Bill sneaks up behind and reaches toward her, the entire scene illuminated by the night vision goggles he has put on.

Final Say: Dr. Hannibal Lecter is the most compelling character ever brought to life on film. Anthony Hopkins creates an iconic villain that we hate to love, someone who is charismatic and psychopathic, seductive, brilliant and extremely dangerous. Jodie Foster matches his performance with a subtle strength, as Clarice tries to resist the velocity of Lecter. This movie is everything a scary movie should be - enough gore and violence for horror buffs, but also a high level of intellectual thrill to please elitist fans of the psychological scare.

I do wish we could chat longer, but… I’m having an old friend for dinner.

Categories: Horror by Dizzy Miss Lizzy
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Tags: Anthony Hopkins, Buffalo Bill, Hannibal, Jodie Foster, Suspense

By Elaine B
A caveman walking the beach in the comic strip B.C. saw a clam walk from one pile of shells to another. “Clams have legs!” the caveman proclaimed. In the next window, in a dialogue balloon, one of the clams said, “Now we have to kill him.” What follows is a series of clam-attempted homicides that Dexter would likely find terribly amusing.

But there is nothing amusing about the situation our antihero finds himself in now. By the end of episode five, Dexter is aware that Prado had set him up by pointing him to a killer who has escaped justice and seeing if he takes the bait. Of course Dexter, so eager to please his new (and likely first) friend, swallows it hook, line and sinker, and heads off for a day to dismember.
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Categories: Drama by Elaine
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Tags: Dexter: Season 3, Jimmy Smits, Showtime

by Ruth Anne Boulet

The girls hit Amsterdam, and of course the challenges begin. The host of Holland’s Top Model tells the girls that they have to find their own way to the model house. They have to work in teams, and Sam and Elina end up as a team, and end up winning 50 extra frames.

Sheena is surprised that Amsterdam isn’t all dirty sex and pot, but actually a nice town. Then Marjorie, Elina and Analeigh decide to have a bath & shave their privates together. Welcome to Amsterdam.

And we get to see more of Amsterdam — the red light district. Miss Jay is there to talk about Red Light Fashion Amsterdam where fashion houses take over brothels for a design show. The girls have to work in pairs with a particular designer to bring that designer’s vision to life.

So we get posing in windows, with Miss Jay and the designers ‘critiquing’ them outside. Marjorie gets high props, and Sheena is damned by being too pretty. Really did Sheena have a chance with this challenge? Sheena the too sexy? Can she possibly NOT be sexy in a brothel window? Isn’t that asking the impossible? The winner gets to walk in several European fashion shows. Miss Jay was right, it’s a great prize. [Read more →]

Categories: Reality TV by windupdoll
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Tags: ANTM, Miss Jay, Mr. Jay, Nigel Barker, Paulina Porizkova, Tyra Banks, WindUpDoll

Halloween (1978, Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, PJ Soles)

The Night HE Came Home!

Quick Plot: 15 years after murdering his sister and her boyfriend, Michael Myers escapes Smith’s Grove Sanitarium and returns to Haddonfield to terrorize a group of babysitters on Halloween.

Scariest Scene: Just as Laurie Strode thinks she has finally killed the bogeyman, the audience sees him slowly sit straight up, in the background. The haunting score and use of lighting on that mask, makes for the most suspenseful end-sequences in horror movie history.

Final Say: Halloween erroneously gets lumped into the “slasher” genre. There is virtually no blood in the film, with nearly all of the scares coming from Carpenter’s use of suspense and impending terror, rather than gore.

Fun Fact: Nearly everyone knows, by now, that the Michael Myers mask was based on an old William Shatner mask. But did you know that the actor who played Michael Myers underneath the mask (Nick Castle), went on to direct such movies as The Last Starfighter and The Boy Who Could Fly?

Categories: Horror, Movies by johnnysweeptheleg
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Tags: Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Myers, Scary Movie Countdown

Poltergeist (1982, Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams, Beatrice Straight)

They’re here.

Quick Plot: A nice suburban family lives in a haunted house. The spirits seem friendly initially, playing harmless pranks to the family’s amusement. But the pranks turn malicious and potentially dangerous, culminating in the abduction of the doll-like youngest child. As the family tries to rescue the little girl, with the help of parapsychologists and a clairvoyant, they realize the terrible truth about the poltergeists.

Scariest Scenes: The face-peeling scene. Although the effects appear silly in a CG age, that scene is still freaky!! The scene where the clown attacks the son. Clowns again! Was there ever a time when a clown wasn’t scary?

Final Say: Though he didn’t direct, writer and producer Steven Spielberg has his fingerprints all over this film. Released just a week before ET: The Extra Terrestrial, Poltergeist shares a multitude of elements (Fantasy - check. Suburban life - check. Adorable child stars - check) and translates as the darker half of one whole concept. Spielberg himself reflected that “If E.T. was a whisper, Poltergeist was a scream.” One can only imagine how different the film would be if left entirely up to director Tobe Hooper, the man who brought us The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Somehow I doubt Poltergeist would have gotten that PG rating.

The Poltergeist Curse: It never hurts a scary movie’s reputation to be the source of a supposed curse. Legend has sprung up around the strange occurrences documented during filming and the curious and untimely deaths of several stars. Perhaps Spielberg should have called in an exorcism. Or the Ghostbusters.

Categories: Horror by Dizzy Miss Lizzy
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Tags: Craig T. Nelson, Poltergeist, Poltergeist Curse, Steven Spielberg

Posted By Jeff Pfeiffer

Continuing our monthlong celebration of Halloween with various scary movie and TV-related lists. Check out our online movie database at channelguidemag.com to see if any of these or other scary titles are on this month. (Note: Videos contain graphic violence, disturbing images and language.)

WACKED-OUT WOMEN:

TOP 5 FEMALE MOVIE PSYCHOS

Our last list looked at the top “mad men” in movies. But psychosis is an equal-opportunity offender, and the ladies can go off the deep end once in a while, too, as these notable films have shown us. “Sugar and spice and everything nice” is not part of the basic makeup of these naughty girls, who can do the work of “crazy” just as well as — if not better than — any man:

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Categories: Horror, Movies by RabbitEars
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Tags: Alex Forrest, Annie Wilkes, Asami Yamazaki, Audition, Carrie, Eihi Shiiha, Fatal Attraction, Glenn Close, Jeff Pfeiffer, Jessica Walter, kathy bates, misery, Piper Laurie, Play Misty For Me, Psychotic Women, Scary Movies

Posted by: haro1d

Like last week’s episode, last night’s OTH was essentially a filler, with a little bit of drama in the closing moments. Here’s the play-by-play, for those of you who need it:

Slamball is on, and Nate is barely hanging in. He gets crunched and crushed all over the place, and Haley is getting worried. Jamie is thrilled and nervous, but not too worried that he can’t comment about his future sex life. “Mommy says I’m too young to date, but Daddy says it’s time,” he says. Peyton introduces herself to Sam at the game, and Sam remarks about Nathan, “Wasn’t he, like, just in a wheelchair or something?” provoking thoughtful reaction from Haley. Nathan ends up being rather battered and bruised after the game, which adds to Haley’s worry, but he’s OK … for now.

The Millie-Vs.-Gigi cauldron is starting to bubble. Mouth has to (legitimately) work late with Gigi on footage of that night’s game, but Millie’s not a happy camper. She kisses Mouth pretty majorly on the mouth, marking her territory and tells him to be home early. Gigi teases Mouth about being on a short leash.

As the game is still going on, Lucas gets a call regarding the sale of options to turn his first book into a movie — followed by Nathan getting crushed into the boards. (Ooh! Foreshadowing! Can you smell a major mistake on the horizon?)

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Categories: Drama by haro1d
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Tags: Brooke, Dan Scott, Gigi, Haley, Lucas, Millie, Mouth, Nathan, One Tree Hill, OTH, Peyton